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Germany is Nervous-Belgium Nuclear Plants

Germany asked Belgium to take Engie SA’s Tihange-2 and Doel-3 atomic plants offline until the safety concerns can be addressed, Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said on April 20, 2016 in an emailed statement. The two facilities, which were shut for investigations for 20 months, are safe to operate, Belgium’s nuclear regulator AFCN said in response to the request…

Engie’s Belgian unit Electrabel operates the two reactors. AFCN decided Nov. 17, 2015 that the reactors were safe to restart after investigations of the steel walls of the reactor vessels. With the approval, AFCN concluded the defects don’t affect safety. The two units account for about 14 percent of the nation’s installed power capacity…

Germany is phasing out nuclear energy in the wake of the Fukushima meltdowns in Japan in 2011, instead developing an energy market built on wind and solar power. The nation is set to close down its remaining eight reactors by 2022.

The plants resumed output by the end of last year. Germany wasn’t satisfied with AFCN’s assessment and called for a Belgium-German working group and for the national independent reactor safety commission, known as RSK, to examine the security issue. The commission concluded that in case of an incident it is unclear that safety provisions are adequate….Doel-3 has a capacity of 1,006 megawatts, while Tihange-2 has a capacity of 1,008 megawatts. The units have permission to operate until their retirement on Oct. 1, 2022, and Feb. 1, 2023, respectively, according to AFCN’s website